Tiny Homes Community Proposed to House Boulder Homeless

“I have great faith in the leadership of the homeless community in Boulder”

The New Chautauqua Project wants to create a self-governing, homeless eco-village including tiny houses, gardens, a community center and basic amenities in Boulder. And at this point the group thinks South Valmont Park in Boulder, at Valmont and Airport roads, is the perfect place to build. Morey Bean, the architect and leader of The New Chautauqua Project, told KGNU’s Hannah Leigh Myers that the project intends to provide an intentional community for the homeless community in Boulder.

“I’ve been concerned about them for a long time, I live downtown and they’re our friends and I see their plight every day and every night and so I put all the trouble and all the challenges that we face into my head one night, just searching for answers…and oddly enough woke up the next morning and all I could think about was Chautauqua.”

Bean says that he researched the local Chautauqua park and found that it originated as a tent city along with the auditorium that is still there today. That inspired the name of the current project.

Bean says he envisions the homeless community and their advocates would organize themselves around what the intentional community would look like and how it would work “I have great faith in the leadership of the homeless community in Boulder, a lot of them have been around for a long time and not only those who are homeless now, but also there is a great dedication from folks who have been homeless or who are a paycheck away from homelessness, or who have had somebody in their families who are homeless, that they become passionate about trying to solve the problem.”

The New Chautauqua Project is holding a planning and input work session Thursday night from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Impact Hub in Boulder (1877 Broadway, Suite 100, Boulder, Colorado 80302). Image courtesy of The New Chautauqua Project